CITY AND
MAYOR JEREMY
HARRIS
STATE OF THE CITY
ADDRESS
COURTYARD,
Council Vice-Chair Felix, City Council members, distinguished guests, and fellow residents, Good Afternoon!
Thank you for joining me for my fourth State of the City Address.
Today, I’d
like to review our City’s progress and share with you my vision for a renewed,
refreshed and vibrant
On a Friday
evening three years and three months ago, I stood in this spot to be
inaugurated as the 11th Mayor of this great City. I realized then that to meet the challenges
facing us we had to take control of our destiny. And so I pledged three crusades to
re-establish
These crusades have become, and will continue to be, the foundation of my administration. During the past three years we have had hundreds of successes, large and small.
An important part of our crusade to improve our quality of life has focused on fighting crime. One reason our quality of life is vastly better than on the Mainland is the safety and security of our neighborhoods and streets. But, like Mainland cities, a few years ago we were experiencing an alarming increase in thefts, burglaries and violent crime.
Our fourth economic initiative is to further stimulate our construction industry. Although both the State and the City have increased our capital expenditures, we all know that public spending alone cannot restore the health of this critical industry.
To get our
construction industry back on track, I’ll be submitting a bill tomorrow to
provide a seven-year property tax exemption on all construction that is
completed within three years. This
property tax exemption will be available to both homeowners and business
owners. Every property owner will be
eligible to benefit from this tax holiday when he or she improves their home,
business or investment property. In the
long run, everyone will benefit from the increased construction and business
activity on
This tax
incentive should help jumpstart the construction of many stalled projects and
allow many of our long standing companies to expand and improve their
facilities. With this tax incentive, for
example, the
Today, I am asking you to join me in a fourth crusade. A crusade to determine our own future and to become masters of our own destiny. We should no longer just be victims of outside events. We can control our destiny by developing a vision needed to set our own course toward economic stability and enhanced quality of life.
For
decades, our City has approached land use parcel by parcel. Although we have a general plan, growth has
occurred without a guiding vision. Our
economic future and our quality of life were never effectively considered in
the process.
As evidence of this failure, our agricultural lands and open space have been overrun by urban sprawl. Our communities have grown and evolved into strip commercial development punctuated by fast food restaurants and gas stations. We lost the charm of neighborhood communities, the corner manapua stand and town square. Elements typically found in traditional neighborhood designs. Our sidewalks and tree-lined streets have given way to the automobile. We have also cut off our communities from the waterfront with misplaced industrial warehouses, freeways and strip commercial centers.
In the coming weeks we’ll unveil our vision for our island for fifty years and beyond. The vision we present is meant to be a starting point for community discussion. Over the coming months our goal is to involve all of our citizens in developing a shared vision for our island’s future.
The
vision that I’ll articulate involves a re-evaluation of all our land use
plans. The General Plan directs growth
to the
This
dramatic growth of residential subdivisions on our agricultural land has
resulted in serious problems for our City.
We have had t spread our infrastructure (sewers, drainage, water) over
long distances which has resulted in higher capital and operating costs. Urban sprawl has also created enormous
traffic problems for our island.
Our
previous solution to the staggering traffic congestion was to propose a heavy
rail system to bring
In our vision
document, I propose that we rethink the basic assumptions of land use planning
and go back to the original policies of the General Plan. Instead of continuing to allow urban sprawl
in
By
redirecting growth to these two urban areas, we’ll stem the increased traffic
coming from
…